Many scholars cite 15th century "broadsides" single sheets of printed news, prayers and forms as early forms of mass media. Historical evidence, however, does not support this opinion, Falk Eisermann, head of an early print cataloguing project at the Berlin State Library, said in a lecture in the Current Periodicals Room of Baker Library on Thursday.
Eisermann disputed the figures of influential early print scholars Henri-Jean Martin and Lucien Febvre, who calculated that with 28,000 editions with 500 copies per edition there were 20 million books and other printed materials produced in Europe before 1500.
Eiserman argued that recent scholarship has put the number of editions closer to 20,000, and that the number of printed copies per edition is extremely difficult to estimate given a scarcity of contemporary accounts, he said. Only 1 percent of the half-million surviving broadsides have contemporary accounts of their printing history, which put the number of broadsides per printing from as many as 6,000 copies to as few as 26, according to Eisermann.
"The conception of broadsides as mass media is a misconception in itself," he said.
Eisermann described the growth of printing as a gradual process that began in places of learning like universities and monasteries, expanding over time to include cities and eventually all of Europe. He also said most early broadsides were likely printed in small quantities.
"Rather than speaking a touch too enthusiastically of industrialized quantities [of broadsides] or mass media, the possibility of local, regional and personal specialization should be taken into account," Eisermann said.
In 2007, Eisermann became the head of the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, an ongoing catalogue of incunabula, or pre-1500 European printed material. The first volume of the catalogue was published in 1925, and according to Eisermann, the catalogue has only recorded authors up to the letter H.
Throughout the lecture, Eiserman described the ways early print media were used throughout history.
The leaders of the Bavarian city of Regensburg sent one broadside the Regensburg Justification to the Holy Roman Emperor and the German public explaining their decision to secede from the Empire and join Bavaria, he said. Messengers distributed the broadside to the public in major cities such as Bonn and Frankfurt by fixing it to church doors and handing it out on the street.
If scholars had similar knowledge about other broadsides, broader conclusions could be drawn about 15th century media, according to Eisermann.
Another example of early printing was the annual almanacs consulted by ordinary Germans for advice on everything from bloodletting to procreation to war. These almanacs were common in many households, Eisermann said.
Eisermann also linked the sale of indulgences Papal absolutions that eventually sparked the Protestant Reformation to the growth of print. He described the late-15th century indulgence campaigns of Cardinal Raymond Peraudi as "media events of extraordinary proportions" that spread thousands of printed indulgence forms to even the smallest towns of Germany.
"All these publishing activities as well as the efforts of indulgence traders resulted in the fundamental change of the practical uses of written media, thus redefining the use of communication in ways that would have been unthinkable without the advent of print," Eisermann said.
Other printed materials in the 15th century included prayers, forms and music although these were relatively rare, according to Eisermann.
"Sweeping statements about the popularity of the early broadside should be mistrusted," Eisermann said. "The lack of specific information concerning most incunabula broadsides implies that certain types like songs and prayers were probably far less frequent than we assume."
